The Ferguson Activist Whose Squad Cared for Her While She Fought for Others

On Instagram, #selfcare makes for good content. Users have tagged over 2.5 million posts—acai bowls, atmospheric candles, yoga mats, green juice—with the hashtag. Over 75,000 people are practicing it on #selfcaresunday, and more than 25,000 photos bear witness to the fact that #selfcarematters. And it does; marginalized populations have performed self-care for centuries in the face of systemic oppression. But the term, whether it refers to critical activist work or a kind of spiritual nourishment, suggests that it's possible to practice care on our own. The truth is we exist in matrices of allies and friends who do this work for us. If we're honest, it isn't #selfcare. It's #squadcare. This week, ELLE.com scholars at Wake Forest University go deep on just what that means.

At the height of the Ferguson protests, Johnetta Elzie forgot the last time she'd taken a shower. She was hardly eating, barely sleeping, and spent her days beneath the scorching sun without access to indoor plumbing.

It was August 2014, and the Missouri native was in the streets of the St. Louis suburb, organizing and protesting the murder of Mike Brown, 18, who'd been fatally shot by former Officer Darren Wilson. Elzie had been there since the beginning, before Brown's death garnered national attention, before it shone a spotlight on decades-old racist policies and disproportionate policing in Ferguson, Missouri, and nationwide.

Elzie, who goes by Netta, rose to prominence during the uprising; while she didn't identify as a professional organizer, her social media presence tracked the progress the movement was making on the ground. She derived no pleasure from the attention. "I don't think happiness was involved at all in those early days, because I always thought I was going to die," says Elzie, now 28, "In the early stages it was more about sacrifice."

But as the movement grew, she learned to lean on people in her inner circle to sustain her. It was work she couldn't do on her own. Three years later, Elzie is no longer on the streets of Ferguson every day, but she remains committed to social justice work that is no less physically and emotionally demanding. Especially since the election of Donald Trump, she is conscious to choose how and when to be active. "I don't believe in fake inclusive spaces," Elzie says, a nod to the January 2017 Women's March, which many felt didn't sufficiently engage with women of color or the issues closest to them. "So if the top says it's intersectional, if the people are the bottom don't believe it, then why am I there?"

Instead, she has devoted her time and energies into expressing her resistance to Trump's administration in ways that feel authentic to her. And after that summer, she makes a greater effort to take care of herself in the process, leaning on her tribe of fellow activists and allies, "finding people who are the people who I would want to be on the front lines with," says Elzie.

Elzie mentions her friend Richael Faithful to illustrate her point. Faithful is a self-described "social justice healer and spiritual activist," who has done work around criminal justice reform in Virginia. "The healers and artists are the ones who really help us navigate how to interrupt and resist," says Faithful. "[Netta's] totally in a world of developing spiritual activism right now."

It's a deliberate move for Elzie, who's come to appreciate how marginalized communities, especially black women, are taken for granted in social movements even while they are overwhelmingly represented on their front lines.

"I think one of the ways that I support my black women friends currently is I do a lot of listening, and I do a lot of sound boarding," says Elzie. "People come and bounce ideas off of me, which I'm fine with because we're friends and it's some sort of exchange."

It's taken time for Elzie to find the strategies that help her feel sustained and content in her work. Ultimately, it requires a balance of leaning on her tribe and engaging in work that is intersectional and fulfilling.

"To me activism is soul work," says Elzie. "If your soul is satisfied and happy then you will be too."

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